[rohrpost] symposium: ART AND BIOMEDICINE: BEYOND THE BODY

[Ingeborg Reichle]

ART AND BIOMEDICINE: BEYOND THE BODY

A one-day symposium about creative visual practices at the frontiers
of biomedicine organised by the Medical Museion at the University of
Copenhagen in partnership with The Schools of Visual Arts, The Royal
Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen.

3 September 2007, 10:00 -- 17:00

Current biomedicine is a vast complex of invisibles: microscopic
entities such as viruses and proteins, difficult concepts such as 
genomics and
proteomics, unwieldy databases of information, and large-scale economic 
issues such as
the practice of pharmaceutical companies in a globalised economy.
The exploratory work of artists in relation to the body, biology and medical
practice is increasingly significant to both historians and practitioners of
medicine, and artists are beginning to appreciate the exciting arenas
opening up in biotechnology and biomedicine.

Recent biomedical sci-art projects funded by the Wellcome Trust, the
Artistsin-Labs project of the Zurich School of Art and Design and the 
radical
initiatives of Critical Art Ensemble among others show a rapidly 
emerging field
of interdisciplinary practice. Artists and designers are skilled
conceptualists who can explore these ideas rather than simply 'explain' 
them.

The conference Art and Biomedicine: Beyond the Body will give voice to the
people practicing in this field -- artists, biomedical practitioners,
exhibition curators, art historians, art teachers and funders will all 
be speaking.
This event will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the life
sciences and in biomedicine, fine arts, history and philosophy of science,
material and visual culture and anthropology, history of art and 
aesthetics, and
those interested in developing interdisciplinary practices and 
collaborations.


Programme

Monday 3 September 2007
10.00 Introduction

Mikkel Bogh (Rector, The Schools of Visual Arts, The Royal Danish
Academy of Fine Arts)
Thomas Söderqvist (Director, Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen)

10.20 Morning Session

Ingeborg Reichle (Research fellow, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der
Wissenschaften, Berlin):
"Larger Than Life: The Use of Living Organisms in Contemporary Art"

Wolfgang Knapp (Lecturer, Institut für Kunst im Kontext, Universität der
Künste, Berlin):
"Artists as Research Scientists; Science as Art? Interdisciplinary
Approaches"

Steve Kurtz (Associate Professor, SUNY Buffalo, artist, member of
Critical Arts Ensemble):
"Point of Intervention"

12.30
Lunch. Projection of Steve Kurtz's film Marching Plague (17 minutes) in
the hall.


13.30 Afternoon Session

Richard Wingate (Lecturer, UK Medical Research Council Centre for
Developmental Neurobiology, King's College, London):
"Exchange and (Sci)Art (What Art Tells Science About How Science Sees
the Brain)"

Ben Fry (Research assistant, MIT Media Laboratory, Cambridge, Mass):
"Computational Information Design and Genomic Cartography"

Ken Arnold (Head of Public Programmes, Wellcome Trust, London):
"Drawing on Science: Medicine, Art and Life at Wellcome Collection"

15.30
Coffee/tea

16.00 Keynote Address

James Elkins (E.C. Chadbourne Chair, Department of Art History, Theory,
and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago):
"Some Languages of Medical Semiotics: Thinking of Non-art Images
Discursively"



Critical Art Ensemble's film Marching Plague (USA/2006/17 min) will be
shown during the day at the conference.

A new sound work by Jacob Kirkegaard commissioned for the conference will
be presented at the Medical Museion, Bredgade 62. www.fonik.dk

www.ku.dk/satsning/biocampus/artandbiomedicine

The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Visual Arts is a
higher arts education institution under the Ministry of Culture offering 
a six-year
MFA programme.

information: http://www.kunstakademiet.dk

Art and Biomedicine: Beyond the Body is part funded by BioCampus, one of
four research priority areas at the University of Copenhagen covering
interdisciplinary research about the way in which biomedicine and 
biotechnology is
developed, applied, regulated and understood in contemporary society.

Information: www.ku.dk/satsning/biocampus

The Medical Museion at the University of Copenhagen is a combined
academic unit and medical museum with extensive collections. Our field 
is the
history of  health and disease in a cultural perspective, with a focus 
on the material and
iconographic culture of recent biomedicine.

Organiser: Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen

Venue: The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Kongens Nytorv 1, Copenhagen.

Information: www.museion.ku.dk
blog: www.corporeality.net/museion